No permanent results seemed to have been achieved by the Montesinos system. There is no record that it survived the man who created it or that the government sought to extend the admirable principles on which it rested. It was essentially a one man system, depending entirely for success on the personal qualities of the individual called upon to carry it out. Montesinos was not, however, singular in his remarkable achievement. The German Obermaier did much the same in the prison of Kaiserslautern, and Captain Maconochie in Norfolk Island exercised a notable mastery over the Australian convicts. The effects produced by Montesinos were little less than phenomenal. He so developed the probity of his convicts that he could rely implicitly upon their honesty and good faith. During the civil war he sent them with confidential despatches to commanders in the field and never had cause to regret the trust placed in them. They were sent out as scouts seeking information of the enemy's movements and brought in news with punctuality and despatch. A message was brought one day to the governor directing him to send a clerk to fetch a thousand dollars from the provincial Treasury. Montesinos forthwith summoned one of his convicts and despatched him, carrying with him the receipt for the money. Within half an hour the man returned with the dollars. Whenever a convict escaped from the presidio, a rare occurrence indeed, other convicts were despatched in pursuit and seldom failed to bring in the fugitive. At one time the Spanish government decided to build a new prison in the capital and to employ convict labour in the construction. The Governor of the presidio of Valencia was ordered to send up a number of prisoners, and next day at daylight they marched, taking with them a quantity of material, the whole escorted by a small body of _cabos_, "prisoner warders," and commanded by a veteran overseer. The journey was safely made to Madrid without the smallest mishap, not a sign or symptom of misbehaviour shown on the road, and the alcaldes of the towns on the route, after anticipating the worst evils, were agreeably surprised and were satisfied to lodge the travellers at night in private houses if there was no prison accommodation. A second experiment of the kind was made in the same year.